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In the hands of Leslie Oschmann, everything old really does become new again. Oschmann is the creative force behind Swarm, an eclectic collection of useful objects crafted from vintage oil paintings that she tracks down in antique shops and flea markets across Europe.

When Oschmann, a former visual director at Anthropologie, moved from the U.S. to the Netherlands and set up a studio in Amsterdam, she satisfied two lifelong desires: to give new life to beautiful objects and to acquire a dog. McDuff, a Wire Fox Terrier, is her constant companion, accompanying her on buying excursions and keeping an eye on her progress in the studio. And, since Amsterdam is such a dog-friendly place, he also goes with her to stores and cafés, often riding in her bicycle basket.

Oschmann has a gift for imaginative juxtapositions of subject, color and texture (linen on wood, stitching on canvas) that give the forgotten paintings new lives as handbags, shoulder bags, totes and even art-covered furniture. But it’s not all flowers and landscapes.

In her wanderings, Oschmann occasionally comes across paintings of dogs … not many and not often, but enough to pique her interest. An avowed “dog nut,” she now deliberately looks for dog-themed paintings, and the fact that they’re harder to find makes them even more special to her. In addition to using these paintings on individual items, she also arranges them in collage-like ways, sometimes including a piece’s unfinished edges, fringe or corners, then has the assemblage reproduced on sturdy canvas fabric, from which she makes pillow and, of course, dog-bed covers.

Each Swarm piece, a deconstructed/reconstructed work of art, incorporates subtle visual surprises, evidence of Oschmann’s artistic inventiveness. As a bonus, they’ve all been approved by McDuff.